1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to an apparatus for guiding and transferring a rapidly quenched metallic tape (referred to as a metallic tape hereinafter), particularly an amorphous metallic tape produced by a single roll method, from a cooling roll to a winder.
2. Related Art Statement
Recently, it has been investigated and developed to produce metallic tapes directly from molten metals (including alloys) by rapidly liquid quenching methods such as a single roll method and a twin roll method. In carrying out these methods, the producing technique itself may of course be important to determine surface configurations and uniformity in thickness of the metallic tapes. However, in the production of the metallic tapes on industrial scale, it is needed to accomplish handling of produced metallic tapes or technique for winding the metallic tapes into coils.
In case of crystalline metallic tapes having thickness of not less than 100 .mu.m, feeding speeds of the tapes are usually not more than 5 m/sec by a limitation resulting from solidification due to heat transfer to a cooling element. Therefore, such metallic tapes can be transferred by a mesh belt having a clamper and taken up by winding by a heat-resistant belt wrapper as proposed in Japanese Patent laid open No. 61-88,904.
In case of amorphous metallic tapes, on the other hand, the thickness is very thin as not more than 50 .mu.m and the feeding speed of the tape is not lower than 20 m/sec, so that means disclosed in the above Japanese Publication could not be applied without any modifications. With the amorphous metallic tapes, moreover, the characteristics of the materials tend to change depending upon producing speeds so that mechanical strengths are often spoilt. Therefore, it is more difficult to accomplish taking-up technique because the producing speed could not be changed in taking up on a reel and taking off.
It has been proposed to wind an amorphous metallic tape onto a take-up reel having a magnet embedded therein arranged closely adjacent a cooling roll in Japanese Patent laid open No. 57-94,453 and Japanese patent application publication No. 59-34,467. This method is dexterous in arranging the take-up reel closely adjacent the cooling roll to eliminate the troublesome transferring of the tapes. However, as the reel is close to the cooling roll, it is not necessarily suitable for continuous production of the tapes. Moreover, it is not suitable for industrial production on a large scale, for lack of spaces for providing inspection devices for thicknesses and apertures of tapes and control device for tensile forces on the tapes.
In order to avoid these disadvantages, proposals for positively accomplishing the transfer technique by arranging winders remote from cooling rolls have been disclosed in Japanese patent laid open Nos. 56-12,257, 59-43,772 and 59-138,572 and Japanese patent application No. 62-290,477. In these techniques, it has been proposed to use suction devices, brush rolls or brush-solid roll pairs and the like as pinch rolls for catching and transferring amorphous metallic tapes.
In the above method, the metallic tape is transferred from the cooling roll to the winder by utilizing the suction device, brush rolls or brush-solid roll pairs placed on a transfer trolley as a pinch roll for catching the amorphous alloy tape or the like. In many cases, the running speed of the transfer trolley is remarkably lower than the feeding speed of the metallic tape or the revolution speed of the cooling rolls, so that before the transfer trolley arrives at the position of the winder and further the metallic tape is taken up on the reel of the winder, the resulting long metallic tape passes through the pinch roll and is scattered around the transfer line ranging from the cooling roll to the winder. As a result, not only the surroundings of the apparatus is spoilt, but also the running of the transfer trolley itself is obstructed, so that this phenomenon comes into a serious problem.
However, these problems are not mentioned in articles reported on the apparatus for the manufacture of metallic tapes such as amorphous alloy tape and the like up to date.